T he long awaited day has arrived. The series of books that are guides to researching docments in other languages is complete. For awhile now, the translation guide books for Polish, Latin & Russian written by William Hoffman & Jonathon Shea have been available to researchers to help them translate these...
City Directory Abbreviation Index City directories are often an underutilized resource for genealogical research. I will explain some of the many ways that city directories can give your research a big boost.City directories are basically a big address book for everyone living in a community. They were used before telephone books...
Keeping organized during your genealogical research process is a must. When I started my personal genealogy research, I was not very organized and it bit me in the ass later on. There are still aspects of my personal research that I must go back and fix. I have many binders and spiral...
After waking up early in the Platan Hotel in the Rynek of Chrzanów, Poland, I met with my Piwczyk relatives for breakfast and then we headed out for some sightseeing. I enjoy all the old churches here in Poland and we went to the Monastery of the White Friars (Discalced Carmelites) which...
After spending a fantastic weekend with the Ciuk family in Sosnowiec, it was on to visit with my grandmother's Piwczykrelatives living in Chrzanów, Poland.I met my father's first cousin Bronek Piwczyk & his wife Zofia with their son Radek after the short drive from Sosnowiec. A delicious meal was ready and...
Rootstech is the largest genealogy conference in the world & will start on Wednesday February 8th until the 11th. Since the Rootstech genealogy conference began back in 2010 its attendance has grown every year. It caters to everyone from novice to expert.I have had the opportunity to attend this conference twice...
St. Nicolas parish in Żarnów. My trip to Poland last year allowed me to learn more about my relatives in addition to the touring & client research I did. I have only a few more blog posts to complete the documentation of my travels. I visited Żarnów & Opoczno, which are places...
I had a discussion not long ago with a client and something came up that I thought all new genealogists should be aware of. I often see family trees posted online that 1) do not have any sources & 2) that have been copied from other family trees without sources.It is first...
Some of the more "modern" mill equipment. While we were traveling to the church in Żarnów we were passing through Miedzna Drewniana. Miedzna Drewniana is a small village that is the home to a relative. Gosia mentioned that there is a mill nearby that belongs to this relative & we should stop and see it...
Św. Mikołaja (St. Nicholas) church in KońskieWhen I was researching my own family, thousands of hours were spent building the family tree while going through rolls of microfilm from a number of churches. My Firkowski family is scattered all over Poland & sometimes I did not know where other family was...
This morning we were up and about early, because we were heading to the Tatry Mountains. It is not really that far of a drive, but because it is so popular, the traffic is unbelievable, and they are working on the road down to the Mountains, so road construction does not...
Town Hall in the Market SquareAlthough I have been to Tarnów before, I had not toured the city. Five years ago, I had some client research that needed to bedone in the Diocesan Archives & there was no time for seeing the sights. This year, I wanted to take the time...
Along the Dunajec River you will find the small town of Czchów that has the remains of an old small castle called Czchów Castle.Only one of the towers remains along with remnants of its original walls, but a person can climb to the top of the tower and get some fantastic views...
Only about 6km from Lipnica Murowana, there is another wooden church built in the 17th century in the village of Gosprzydowa.The Uszwica River runs through the center of the village & the church of St. Ursula is just outside the main village along the main road from Lipnica Murowana to Gnojnik,...
St. Leonard If you are traveling along the trail of wooden churches in the area of Kraków, you will come upon the small town of LipnicaMurowana, where there are three churches. It is unusual to have so many churches in a small town, but I guess it is known as the...
Nowy Wiśnicz Castle is located in the village of Stary Wiśnicz in southern Poland. This castle was originally built in 1397 and has had changes to its structure over the centuries.It is a wonder to behold all by itself, but you get a guided tour of the inside where not only are...
After our visit to the Home of Jan Matejko, Gosia & I went to see the Cistercian Abby in Mogiła (Part of Kraków). The Abby can bedated back to 1222 when it brought to Mogiła. We were going to look around and take some photos, but as it turned out, one person...
There are many famous people who are from Poland and one of the well known artists in the world, also was from Poland.I had the chance to see his home in Kraków-Krzesławice, which included some of his works of art.The display of old furniture is fantastic and are really works of...
St. Mary's Basilica (Kościół Mariacki)I finally did have the chance to see Rynek (Marketplace) in Kraków at night during this trip, but it is still wonderful to see it during the daylight, so after the visit to the underground museum in Rynek, we took in the sights in daylight. I felt...
In 2005 archealogists dug up the Rynek (Marketplace) in Kraków to learn what was underneath their feet. Everyone knew thatthere was something under Rynek, but nobody knew what & finally permission was given to explore. I was there in 2004 & in 2006 & I never had known that it had...
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